John-Erik Hansson

Research

Research themes

  • British history (18th-19th centuries)
  • Intellectual, cultural and literary history of the Romantic period and the Age of Revolutions (c. 1750-1850)
  • History of ideologies and of political thought (18th-20th centuries)
  • History of childhood, education and children’s literature (18th-19th centuries)
  • Political radicalism (18th-20th centuries)

 

Research Supervision:  

  • Intellectual and cultural history of the British Isles, 17th-19th centuries
  • Political radicalism and radical movements, 17th-20th centuries
  • Education and childhood, 17th-19th centuries
  • History and literature
  • Political ideologies and political thought, 17th-20th centuries

Current Project

I currently have three research projects. I am currently editing my thesis, entitled “To Teach Every Principle of the Infidels and Republicans”? William Godwin Through His Children’s Books, for publication as a monograph. In this work, I show how Godwin continued his political activities in the early 19th century by writing children’s books. For my second project, I am working on a new history of the concept of imagination in Britain in the long 18th century, by placing Britain in a transnational context. My third project seeks to shed new light on the history of anarchist thought and anarchism as a political ideology. I’m investigating how English-language anarchists rewrote the history of anarchist thought and reappropriated anarchist figures (including William Godwin) in the 20th century.

Bio

Education and Academic Positions

  • 2021- , Lecturer in British History, Université de Paris.
  • 2020-2021, Postdoctoral teaching fellow in English, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin.
  • 2019-2020, Postdoctoral teaching and research fellow in English, CY Cergy Paris Université.
  • 2018-2019, Lecturer (fixed-term) in English, CY Cergy Paris Université.
  • 2017-2018, Postdoctoral teaching and research fellow in English, CY Cergy Paris Université.
  • 2018, PhD in History and Civilisation, European University Institute (Florence, Italy). Dissertation title: “To Teach Every Principle of the Infidels and Republicans”? William Godwin Through His Children’s Books (https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/59870).

 

Administrative Responsibilities:

  • Co-editor of the Ideology, Theory, Practice blog (https://www.ideology-theory-practice.org/)
  • Book reviews editor, Anarchist Studies (https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/anarchiststudies/)
  • Co-director, with Ariane Fennetaux, of the Early Modernities and the Circulation of Knowledge axis
  • Co-convenor, with Laura Carter, of the history reading group
  • LARCA co-organiser, with Stéphanie Prévost, of the Séminaire Franco-Britannique d’Histoire (https://sfbh.hypotheses.org/)

 

Media

    Publications

      Articles

      Selected Publications:

      •  « Through the Looking-Glasses : Godwin’s Biographical Works for Children in Context. » in Elizabeth O’Brien, Helen Stark & Beatrice Turner (Dir.), William Godwin, Fears, Forms, Futures (Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp. 57-78.
      • « William Godwin, Romantic-Era Historiography and the Political Cultures of Infancy » in Cian Duffy & Martina Domines Veliki (Dir.), Romanticism and the Cultures of Infancy (Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), pp. 183-201.
      • « De la justice politique à l’éducation : progrès et bonheur dans la pensée de William Godwin (1756-1836) », Philosophical Enquiries – revue des philosophies anglophones, 2020, 10, pp. 35-51.
      • « Authorship in the Long Nineteenth Century – a Reappraisal », Nineteenth Century Contexts, 2019, 41(4), pp. 369-376. [co-written with Matilda Greig et Mikko Toivanen, introduction to the thematic dossier entitled « The Author Exhumed : New Perspectives on Authorship in the Long Nineteenth Century »].
      • « The Genre of Radical Thought and the Practices of Equality : the Trajectories of William Godwin and John Thelwall in the mid-1790s. ». History of European Ideas, 2017, 43(7), pp. 776-790.

       

      See publications on HAL